The Vienna School of Fantastic Realism (German: Wiener Schule des Phantastischen Realismus) is a group of artists founded in Vienna in 1946. It includes Ernst Fuchs, Maître Leherb (Helmut Leherb), Arik Brauer, Wolfgang Hutter, Anton Lehmden, and Israeli artist Zeev Kun, all students of Professor Albert Paris Gütersloh at the Vienna Academy of Fine Arts. Gütersloh's emphasis on the techniques of the Old Masters gave the "fantastic realist" painters a grounding in realism (expressed with clarity in detail found in early Flemish painting) combined with religious and esoteric symbolism. Some older members of the group Rudolf Hausner, Kurt Regschek and Fritz Janschka emigrated to the US in 1949, where Kurt Regschek, helped organize the early exhibitions of the group in 1965. Hausner, Fuchs, Hutter, Brauer and Lehmden were referred to as "The Big Five" who subsequently held successful exhibitions worldwide with international recognition from 1965 onward.
